Thursday, January 5, 2017

Done with Dick

Thank GOD I've finally finished I Love Dick. It was infuriating, irritating, boring and ultimately excellent and I'm glad I read it. I have W.G. Sebald's Austerlitz inscribed by Ris waiting so patiently at my bedside, but I swore this year everything I began I'd finish so I slogged it out and now here I am finally laying Dick to rest. I really hated the experience of reading it, yet now I can't stop thinking about it. The book has changed me. There are bent-back pages all the way through, with paragraphs I want to reread such as:Because I'm moved in writing to be irrepressible. Writing to you seems like some holy cause, 'cause there's not enough female irrepressibility written down. I've fused my silence and repression with the entire female gender's silence and repression. I think the sheer fact of women talking, being, paradoxical, inexplicable, flip, self-destructive but all else public is the most revolutionary thing in the world.Public. Yes. This is what I love most about this book. She allows herself to be completely, uncompromisingly, seen. She is unafraid to show herself as irritating. Ugly. Over-intellectual. Base. Talks-too-much.In love. Over-emotional. Over-analytical. Tries-too-hard. Boring. Curious. Obsessive. I want to reread Dick entirely, but it was so painful. I have much more to say on the subject, but for now I'll just post this photo by/of Hannah Wilke with the little chewing gum vaginas stuck all over her face. Another of the great discoveries to have come from reading Dick. Sleep tight.